Sherry Turkle's book Alone Together talks a lot about this. A recurring theme is people seeing social robots going from being "better than nothing", partially f

Sherry Turkle's book Alone Together talks a lot about this. A recurring theme is people seeing social robots going from being "better than nothing", partially filling some human void, to being "better than anything", because the robot has some set of qualities superior to humans. Medical care robots, for example, lack the disgruntled attitudes cited by elderly patients. Robotic dogs are there to play when you want to play with them, and can be easily stowed away when you don't. I found it both fascinating and disconcerting how easily people seem to accept robots instead of other people in a variety of relations.